online ; setosolace

[new message from unknown number]

Please help me it's urgent
I don't know what to do
I'm panicking
My life's a wreck
sent at 12:34am

Huh?
Why what happened?
Who is this?
read at 12:37am

Isn't this the suicide hotline?
Never mind
Isaac probably gave me the wrong
number
sent at 12:39am

Wait
Let me help you
read at 12:40am

What do you mean help me?
sent at 12:40am

You're the one who texted me first
so I figured I should help
What's going on?
read at 12:40am

No
I'm okay
sent at 12:41am

Can I at least get your name?
read at 12:41am

No
sent at 12:43am

Why?
read at 12:43am

Because
sent at 12:43am

Because???
read at 12:43am

You could be a pedophile
sent at 12:44am

I'll tell you my name
read at 12:44am

You sound too formal
I don't like it
sent at 12:56am

So do you
What took you so long to reply??
sent at 12:56am

+

Brice sighed, his phone resting on his chest while listening to the rain pour down outside his house. It was a gloomy Monday — well it was technically Tuesday since it was close to 1am, but to him it still felt like a Monday. He was a college student; one that had a more shittier sleep schedule than his own grades, which did show a lot. Studying computer engineering, balancing his daily workout regiments, and drawing was a difficult task all on its own.

But now something kept him awake, something that wasn't his insomnia, his grades, his workout regiments, or his drawings.

He picked up his phone and looked at the message again; it stood out like a sore thumb.

"Please help me it's urgent
I don't know what to do
I'm panicking
My life's a wreck
sent at 12:34am."

"Isn't this the suicide hotline?
Never mind
Isaac probably gave me the wrong
number
sent at 12:39am."

Yeah, Brice did feel guilty about the person on the other line not having someone proper to talk to, especially in a dire time of need. It was on his conscious; stained like a misplaced fingerprint smudge on a finger painting. He groaned, turning off his phone and setting it on the nightstand.

Someone was probably going to commit suicide tonight — he could feel their urge within his own hands.

That night Brice Purton stayed awake, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of the pouring rain on the apartment complex's rooftop — an insomniac with a guilt that was thicker than his own web of lies he spun on a daily basis.